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Tuesday, August 5, 2014

A Letter from an Unhappy Customer by Jennifer Mitchell

Sweets that give you superpowers are wonderful fun, until one goes wrong... by Jennifer Mitchell.

To Tracy Wills, CEO of Wills Supplements:

I have been a loyal customer of your company for the past several years. I have bought and used many of your products. The invisibility cola, the super strength juice, and the telekinesis bars are my favourites. Over the years, I have recommended your products to many of my friends and family, but I am afraid that I can no longer do this as evidently your quality control is lacking.

Last week, I packed a Flight Chew in my son's lunch, like I did most days. He always loved to spend the lunch hour flying around the schoolyard, and dive-bombing the teachers and other students, sending them running for cover. Boys will be boys! I never packed more than one for him, so that the effects would wear off before the lunch hour was over.

Last Tuesday, the Flight Chew did not function as expected. He was unable to control the flight effect, and dive towards other students like he always did. All he was able to do was float helplessly, higher and higher, as your product carried him into the clouds.

The teachers called me as soon as they saw that your product had failed. By the time I arrived at the school, my son was a tiny dot, high in the sky, and soon he disappeared completely from sight.

The police were also called to the scene, and they spotted my son with the help of their high powered binoculars. He was nearly one kilometre in the air, and climbing steadily. A seagull was perched on his shoulder, so at least he had company up there, but that was small comfort to me. I was terrified that the product's effects would wear off, he would come crashing to the ground, and almost certainly die.

As I write this letter, a week after he consumed the chew, my son is hovering at a steady 1.5 kilometres above the surface of the Earth. He is alone up there. The seagull pooped on his shoulder and then flew away, and I expect your company to reimburse the dry cleaning costs. I had feared that he would be carried all the way into space by your badly tested product, but it seems that as the Flight Chew is starting to wear off his altitude is remaining constant. This is bittersweet news. While he will not be carried into the cosmos, at some point, the effects will wear off completely and he will fall back to Earth.

I would like to give you a chance to remedy the situation, before I call the national paper and my lawyer, in that order. This is what you (and I mean you, Tracy Wills!) need to do:

Build a ladder, approximately 1.5 kilometres tall, and personally climb up it to rescue my son.

Alternately, you can rescue him in a hot air balloon.

Provide me with a full refund of the purchase price of $7.99.

Pay for the seagull poop removal.

The methods that I have suggested for the rescue are laughably primitive, I know. Ladders and air balloons have not been necessary since the invention of your flight supplements, but I think that under these circumstances, avoiding your product seems wise. Please do not attempt a rescue by helicopter, as poor little Arthur is in enough danger already; let's not add spinning blades to the picture.

New and delicious and I suspect the Wrigley Bros., the Wright Bros., the Sikorsky Bros. and Astronaut Inc, are having a tasteful laugh on the whole matter. I can imagine the glee at Simpson Bros. Ladder Co. Ltd.